BEULAH, Colo. (AP) -- Residents were allowed to return home Wednesday as crews steadily extended containment lines around a 12,200-acre wildfire that had forced the evacuation of an estimated 5,000 people.
The entire town of Beulah and two subdivisions outside the town were reopened to residents, but Pueblo County sheriff's spokesman Steve Bryant said he did not know how many people had left. About 1,200 people live within the town.
Beulah resident Bob Marino said he was ''tickled pink'' when he returned to see his home still standing. He was unable to reach his house when he returned from a fishing trip Monday, a day after the town was evacuated.
''It's like hitting the lotto,'' said Marino, 59. ''I'm going out for a steak dinner.''
Bryant said everyone in Pueblo County was allowed to return, while Custer County dispatchers reported all evacuation orders were lifted. About 100 residents in a Greenwood subdivision, who were the first told to leave their homes last week when the fire began, had been allowed to return home earlier this week.
The fire was 40 percent contained by Wednesday morning, up from 30 percent the day before.
The fire was burning in dry, steep terrain in the Wet Mountains about 150 miles south of Denver.
''Monday we got a toehold and yesterday we put a foot in,'' Steinke said.
Ground crews massed Wednesday on the southern and southeastern edge of the fire.
''That's the area we really need to get buttoned up today. We have open lines there and it leads to Beulah,'' Steinke said.
No injuries were reported and no homes burned, but more than 1,000 houses, outbuildings and other structures were listed as threatened.
About 800 firefighters, eight helicopters, nine air tankers and 56 fire trucks were on the scene.
The lightning-caused fire, which started July 6 and has cost $2.6 million to fight so far.
Steinke said fire managers were upbeat Wednesday morning and could set a target date for full containment as early as Wednesday evening.
In southern Arizona, meanwhile, about 30 summer homes and lodges were evacuated southeast of Tucson after a 9,260-acre blaze jumped containment lines.
The evacuations in Madera Canyon were being done primarily as a precaution, firefighting officials said. Fire crews want people out of the canyon so they can continue building fire lines there and because there is only one road out of the canyon, said Bill Watt, a spokesman for the team fighting the fire.
''It's a potentially dangerous situation because there is one road, one exit out,'' Watt said. ''We're not in an emergency situation. We have the opportunity to move these folks out in an orderly and unhurried fashion.''
